“I am waiting / for the meek to be blessed / and inherit the earth / without taxes / and I am waiting / for forests and animals / to reclaim the earth as theirs,” writes the late Lawrence Ferlinghetti in his poem “I Am Waiting,” which appears in his 1958 collection A Coney Island of the Mind. The speaker presents a long, meandering list of things they are waiting for, many of which are related to social, cultural, and political change and reveal a snapshot of activist concerns of the time. “I am waiting / for a way to be devised / to destroy all nationalisms / without killing anybody.” Write a poem that lists what you are awaiting, perhaps reflecting on current issues, both national and international. You may even want to reference characters from your favorite works of literature, as Ferlinghetti does with Tom Sawyer, Aphrodite, and others.
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